One who uses a trip to get out of paying zakaah is sinning and the obligation of paying zakaah is not waived in his case

Question

Some people use tricks with regard to zakaah. They have land or livestock and so on, and to get out of paying zakaah they sell it or exchange it before one year has passed. Does this action mean that the duty of paying zakaah is waived or not?.

Answer

Praise be to Allaah.

Firstly:

Undoubtedly using tricks to get out of shar’i obligations is
a haraam action and the fact that the person is trying to trick Allah is
something reprehensible and blameworthy according to all wise people. How
can the Muslim dare to try to deceive Allah when he knows that Allah can see
him and knows what he is hiding?!

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said, after
mentioning that using tricks is haraam: The evidence that we have mentioned
and much more indicates that it is haraam to use tricks and issue fatwas on
the bass of these tricks with regard to the religion of Allah. The one who
studies the hadeeths which speak of the curse will find that most of them
refer to the one who regards as permissible that which Allah has forbidden
and tries to avoid obligatory duties by means of tricks. For example, the
Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “May Allaah curse
al-muhallil and al-muhallal lahu [The muhallil is the one who marries a
woman and divorces her so that she can go back to her first husband, and the
muhallal lahu is the first husband.]” and he said: “May Allah curse the
Jews. Animal fat was forbidden to them, so they rendered it and sold it and
consumed its price.” End quote from I’laam al-Muwaqqi’een, 3/150

Al-Qurtubi (may Allah have mercy on him) said (9/137):

The scholars are unanimously agreed that before one full year
has passed, a man may dispose of his wealth by selling it or giving it away,
if he does not intend to avoid paying zakaah, and they are unanimously
agreed that if one year has passed and the zakaah collector has come to
collect it, it is not permissible for him to use tricks or reduce the amount
he should pay.

Maalik said: If anything is disposed of from his wealth with
the intention of avoiding paying zakaah one month or so before the end of
the year, then he must pay zakaah.

Then he said: The one who tries to avoid any of the duties he
owes to Allah by means of a trick will never prosper and Allaah will never
accept any excuse from him. What the fuqaha’ permitted of disposing of some
of one's wealth close to the end of the year only applies to that which is
not intended as a means of avoiding paying zakaah. The one who intends to
avoid paying it is sinning and the duty is not waived, and Allah will bring
him to account. End quote.

Once this is established, it will be known that the one who
has the slightest common sense, decency and religious commitment should not
do any of these tricks which may be a cause of loss in this world and in the
Hereafter. It may be that the heedless and deceived one is seeking thereby
to increase his wealth and make it grow, but that will be a cause of it
being doomed and diminished, or having no blessings in it, so that neither
he nor his children will benefit from it. Or perhaps his wealth will be a
cause of trouble for him and his offspring, so the Shaytaan will send
against him his helpers to make him spend it on haraam things, pleasures and
evil desires, as is no secret to the one who has seen how people are,
especially the children of traders and other wealthy people who do not give
what is due to Allah of their wealth and do not dispose of it in the way
enjoined by Allah.

From the words of Imam Malik quoted above, we see that if a
person uses tricks to avoid paying zakaah, the duty is not waived from him
and that it does not benefit him. He still has to pay zakaah when one year
has passed.

Ibn Qudaamah said in al-Mughni (2/285): If he does
that in an attempt to avoid paying zakaah, the duty is not waived for him,
whether what is exchanged is livestock or anything else that reaches the
minimum threshold (nisaab). The same applies if he uses up or destroys part
of the minimum threshold with the aim of making it fall below that threshold
so that zakaah will be waived; it is not waived and the zakaah should be
taken from him at the end of the year, if he sold it or used it up when the
time for zakaah to become obligatory was approaching. But if he did that at
the beginning of the year, no zakaah is due, because that is not assumed to
be a trick to avoid paying. End quote.

Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn Baaz (may Allah have mercy on him)
was asked: Is it permissible for two or three men to put their flocks
together for the sake of zakaah?

He replied:

It is not permissible to put together or separate wealth or
property that is subject to zakaah so as to avoid paying it or in order to
reduce amount paid, because the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be
upon him) said in the saheeh hadeeth: “Do not put together separate flocks
and do not divide a flock so as to avoid zakaah.” Narrated by al-Bukhaari in
his Saheeh.

If a man has 40 sheep and he divides them so that no zakaah
will be due on them, the duty of paying zakaah is not waived for him, and by
doing that he is sinning, because he is trying to use a trick to avoid that
which Allah has made obligatory. End quote. Majmoo’ al-Fataawa, 14/59.